this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2026
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I was just wondering about all the Europeans (excluding UK)... like do y'all understand... say, an American movie or TV as well as those in your national language?

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[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

My wife is from a non English speaking country and her English is better then my Australian English.

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 0 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I was more of thinking of like people who learned English in their non-English country simply because its Lingua Franca, not as in immigrants.

As in: a someone that just learned it from going online and like browse social media / forums, and watching movies but never stepped foot inside a native-English-speaking country

Cuz that really would be impressive

[–] Mika@piefed.ca 2 points 1 day ago

I'm in the English-speaking country now and it was one of the reasons to emigrate there specifically, cause I've learned the language over the years at home, first by playing games & reading lyrics & browsing internets, then by watching movies with subs, then by forcing myself to switch subs off and catch the spelling. Also work calls.

[–] gustofwind@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

As a native English speaker foreigners often have better technical English because they have to learn the actual rules of grammar properly

We don’t actually get a thorough education in America for our own language. Some people do but most just get the basics and the rest is on us to absorb

[–] DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Meanwhile, my mom still says: "I today went to the store" (from 我 今天 if you don't change the order it's "I today", lolz) and she changes between "he" and "she" between sentences for the same person lol, it almost sounds like misgendering someone

And like "Why you no [do X thing]" (because it's 为什么 你 不 --> "why you no")

Whatever, doesn't really matter, it's understandable, abeit funny to hear; immigration officials approved citizenship so it must be good enough. Good enough to do bussiness here... so... whatever

[–] gustofwind@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

It’s funny how sometimes one word changes the entire sentence and other times it has basically no affect at all

Can actually mess up quite a few words and still successfully communicate which I think is just great

Not sure how flexible other languages are about that kinda stuff

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

My wife did lean it in her home country I'm the one that moved to a non English speaking country.